Interviewing For Management And Leadership Positions

Its even more important to have the skills, strategies and tactics to identify those qualities that make a potentially great hire.

A large number of recognized leaders were interviewed to discover whether or not they believed they were a born leader or whether or not they had learned leadership. It's interesting to note that they all agreed without exception that they learned the skill of leadership.

This has interesting implications for those people who wish to employ staff in leadership positions. We know that leadership skills are rare and valuable. In industry there is a great shortage of effective leaders at all levels.

When you think about leaders and managers and how they go about their responsibilities, you clearly see that leaders initiate and install change whereas managers tend to maintain the current situation.

One of the slightly cynical definitions of leadership can be described as a phenomenon that is discussed frequently and rarely understood.

It is very difficult to pin down the essence of leadership. It has been said that leadership is like beauty, it is hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

The role of leadership has changed. No longer will employees accept the command and control style beloved by autocratic leaders. They will respond better to the behaviour of leaders who adopt a style which is one of coaching, training and respect for the individual.

It is becoming apparent that effective leadership incorporates the growing importance of anticipating change, promoting a vision and getting the best from the staff.

Because of the accelerating change in the workplace today's leaders must exhibit the ability to learn quickly and adapt to change. These are qualities that are hard to identify at the traditional interview yet they are essential if the person is going to be successful.

This means that interviewing skills need to be of the highest quality to avoid the perils of a bad hire. Furthermore, the interviewer must have a larger range of strategies and tactics available to select those winning people.

Regrettably, it is all too frequent to find people in leadership positions who are perfectly equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

Although all leaders are different and have vastly differing styles, they all share the following characteristics. · A guiding vision. · A passion. · Trustworthiness, self-knowledge and honesty. · Curiosity and daring.

The search for self-knowledge is vital and part of this is trying new things and testing them. This could be called self-invention. To learn self-knowledge takes a lifetime. Here are four basic ways to develop and understand self-knowledge.

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Peter Mitchell is a business consultant who has helped many businesses to lift their labor productivity in the workplace at little or low cost. His practical guide The Key To Productivity should be on every manager's desk and used to install your productivity improvement program. To find out more go to www.thekeytoproductivity.com.